Doctors Refuse To Accept Cleveland Clinic Assistants

Doctors from Cleveland Clinic Florida and the North Broward Hospital District have clashed once again, this time because district doctors refused to allow four of the clinic`s surgical assistants to work at Broward General Medical Center.

The action could delay the Cleveland-based clinic`s plan to perform open- heart surgery at the medical center, clinic officials said.

A special review committee of a dozen district doctors refused on Tuesday to evaluate applications from the clinic assistants seeking to work at Broward General.

``(The assistants) were met at the door and turned away,`` clinic spokeswoman Holly Strawbridge said. ``(The district doctors) can delay things indefinitely. We won`t be able to operate on our patients without a team.``

The applicants were part of the support team for five clinic doctors who were given permission by the hospital district`s board of commissioners last month to perform open-heart surgery for the next five years at Broward General. At that time, clinic officials said the team planned to begin operating in March.

The agreement struck between the hospital board and Cleveland Clinic doctors angered district doctors, who said that clinic doctors eventually might compete with Broward General`s staff for patients.

The review committee`s refusal on Tuesday to evaluate the applications was a result of the board`s decision in January, which Dr. Diran Seropian, chief of staff for Broward General, called capricious.

The district doctors say the agreement with Cleveland Clinic usurps their authority to evaluate doctors seeking to work at Broward General, Seropian said. The district doctors also said they think the board gave the clinic`s doctors too much power over the medical center`s heart program.

Seropian said the district doctors are refusing to review any applications from any outside doctors who want to work at Broward General until the authority of the district doctors is cleared up, possibly by a judge.

Some board members said the January agreement does not diminish the authority of district doctors.

``I don`t feel we in any way lost track of our obligation to protect the medical staff already here,`` board member Frank Childers said.

Typically, district doctors review the qualifications of doctors and medical assistants before they are allowed to work at Broward General.

But under the board`s agreement with the clinic, clinic doctors have ``immediate, interim privileges`` to use Broward General in emergency circumstances, Strawbridge said. That means the five doctors cleared to perform open-heart surgery can call on other clinic doctors to assist them.